Spend long enough talking to people who are thinking about buying an electric car and the battery soon becomes the main topic of conversation. This wasn’t always the case – for years one number dominated everything: range.
That was understandable when the EV mass market was in its infancy, but battery technology has moved on quickly and range alone is now a rather crude way of judging how good an electric car is.
These days, reliable range figures are much more of a given, so the more useful questions about batteries now are: how quickly can it charge? How efficiently does the car use its battery power? How well will the battery cope with years of charging and driving? And how much will the next owner know about its history?
The main advances in battery technology haven’t come from one miracle component, though. Better cells are part of it, but so are the way those cells are packaged, the software that manages them, the electrical architecture around them and the systems that keep a battery at the temperature where it works best.
Anders Bell, Volvo Cars’ former chief engineering and technology officer who has just moved to a role focused on digital tech, puts it neatly: “With our new electric vehicle architecture, showcased on the new fully electric EX60, we directly address the main worries that customers have when considering a switch to a fully electric car.” His view of the next decade is pragmatic: charging will get quicker, while better packaging will keep improving range and efficiency.
For the driver, one of the most obvious changes is charging. The latest generation of electric cars is moving to 800-volt electrical systems, including Volvo’s ES90, EX90 and the new EX60. The number itself isn’t really the point; what matters most is what that advanced technology allows engineers to do.
Higher voltage can move a lot of power while keeping current lower, reducing heat and allowing for lighter components, while making very high charging speeds possible. Volvo says the fastest-charging EX60 can add up to 205 miles of range* in just 10 minutes at a suitably powerful charger. That completely changes the rhythm of long-distance EV travel: the car can add a useful amount of range in roughly the time it takes to stop to buy a coffee.
There’s a change going on beneath your feet, too. Traditionally, a battery pack has been treated as a large component fitted into a car; now it is becoming part of the car itself. Volvo’s new SPA3 electric architecture uses clever cell-to-body technology, integrating the battery into the vehicle structure rather than surrounding it with layers of separate packaging.
“The battery cells of the EX60 are directly integrated in the car’s floor, which lowers the car’s weight and helps deliver that class-leading range,” says Bell. “It also improves comfort, safety and interior space.” Less weight and wasted space mean less energy is needed to move the car, so efficiency improves without having to make the battery bigger.
Software is just as important to the smart use of battery power. A modern EV constantly monitors temperature, charging power and battery condition, adjusting the way energy is put into and drawn from the cells. Volvo has incorporated tech from British startup Breathe Battery Technologies into the EX60 so the car can alter how the battery accepts power and keep it within its preferred operating window. What’s also worth remembering is that the fastest charge isn’t necessarily the most valuable if it comes at the expense of battery health – the smarter approach is to deliver speed when conditions allow, while looking after the battery over the long term.
Range, then, is no longer the whole story. A battery that will travel more than 500 miles when new is impressive and useful, too. But one that remains healthy after years of school runs, motorway journeys, hot summers, cold winters and repeated charging is arguably more important.
Durability affects the first owner, the second owner and, ultimately, the value and environmental usefulness of the car, while peace-of-mind is hugely important for EV buyers. Volvo, for example, is offering a 10-year battery warranty with the EX60 – the longer a battery remains useful in a car, and potentially in a second-life application afterwards, the better use we make of the materials and energy that went into producing it.
There’s a degree of re-education that needs to be done here, too. Buyers of secondhand petrol and diesel cars have spent decades learning what to look for: service history, mileage, oil leaks, strange noises. With an EV, the most valuable component – the battery – is largely invisible, which can make its condition feel like a leap of faith.
Battery health data changes that. Instead of wondering whether a five-year-old electric car has been “worn out” by charging, a buyer should be able to see evidence of the battery’s condition and history.
That’s the thinking behind the battery passport. Volvo already offers digital battery passports on models including the EX90 and ES90, now the EX60 gets one, too. Scan a QR code and the passport can provide information on the origin of the battery, its service history, recycled content and the raw materials inside it, while Volvo’s information for selected models also includes state of health. From February 2027, electric vehicle batteries placed on the EU market will be required to have an electronic battery passport, so what is unusual today is set to become normal tomorrow.
That could prove to be one of the most important battery developments of all, not because it makes an EV go farther or charge faster, but because it replaces uncertainty with confidence. If buyers can see where a battery came from, what is in it and, crucially, how healthy it remains, the battery stops being an expensive worry under the floor – it becomes a known quantity with a record of its own.
Range anxiety may have dominated the electric-car story for the past decade, but I’m convinced that battery confidence may well define the next.
Freedom to move. Electric
Find out more about the fully electric Volvo EX60
* Range and charge time based on P12 battery using 350kw chargers mostly found on major arterial routes. These figures may not reflect real life driving results, which will depend upon a number of factors including cold weather and different battery options. Preliminary data.
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